I doubt many of us made it through the holidays without thinking of the mass shooting in Newtown Connecticut.. Such a horrific event penetrates the armor of the most hardened of us. So as we figure out ways to move on, we face two options:
1. Let time diminish our feelings about it
2. Keep the tragedy alive enough to have a national discussion about it
For friends and family who lost loved ones in the Newtown shootings, there certainly is a need for some time and perhaps some space away from the events of that day. People deal with tremendous grief in different ways. But do we as a country want to simply forget about it and go on our way? Once the media moves on to the next big thing, will we just let it drop from our memory? There is a certain likelihood that will happen. How many of us know what has happened since the other mass shootings we had in 2012?
Or we can talk about it and I believe the big “it” we can talk about is guns and their prevalence in our homes. There are other “its” such as mental health and security but without weapons of mass destruction, we would not have seen the terrible loss of life. So my wish is for everyone to talk about it – what kind of control can we manage over the prevalence of guns ? Is there a place for certain types of guns and not others? Who should be able to purchase guns?
When I was director of Helpmate many years ago, we talked a lot about the fact that if you have a gun in your home it is more likely to be used against you than to be used against something or someone outside of your home. We certainly took many calls from battered women whose husbands not only threatened but shot them with guns. Then there were those who were killed by their spouse...
WLOS is hosting town hall on this topic. “ Join News 13 for a town hall discussion on gun control. We will debate the issue Thursday, January 24th at the Ag Center at 7:30 p.m. You can also watch live on www.wlos.com”.
Think about attending this event and sharing your thoughts about guns in our society. We don’t have to have the answers yet, but we need to be able to think out loud and hear what others are thinking.
